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Wasteland - Timeline! What has happened to the Earth?
2008 - Stanley Wankel, an out-of-work used car salesman, takes his life savings and invests in a small Fertilizer production company in Hoboken, New Jersey, called Omega Fertilizer and Potassium Inc. 2012 - Panic over the “Mayan Apocalypse” causes Marvin Dubois to dump all his stock in Omega. Simultaneously, a computer error causes Stanley Wankel’s broker to buy all available shares of Omega, inadvertently granting Stan majority ownership in the company. 2013 - Stan, now the accidental owner, changes the direction of Omega from Fertilizer and Potassium to manufacturing consumer goods... and potassium. 2017 - Boasting record profits in the potassium futures sector, Stan purchases the state of New Jersey from the Mafia, and begins converting it into a world-leading center of consumer goods production and potassium mining. 2021 - Omega Consumer Goods and Potassium Inc. purchases the ailing Walde Corp, turning it’s many thousand of Walde Mart stores into “Omega Centers for Potassium Enrichment and Consumer Goods”. Most people just call them “Omega Stores”. 2027 - Omega completes expanding it’s manufacturing infrastructure into every known sort of product. This is largely accomplished through the “purchase” of the country of Belarus and the conversion of its entire national infrastructure into manufacturing, agriculture, and potassium mining. 2028 - Stan Wankel is called before the US Senate to answer questions concerning the mass reported potassium poisoning of thousands of US citizens who shopped at its stores. After several days of testimony, Wankel agrees to change the name of the company’s retail locations to “Omega Centers for Safe Potassium Enrichment and Consumer Goods”. During the testimony it is revealed that Wankel believes his company’s “ownership” of New Jersey grants him immunity from Senate oversight of his company. No satisfactory conclusion is reached. 2029 - With world potassium deposits becoming depleted from extensive and unnecessary over mining, Omega Corp launches “Omega One” a deep-space probe designed to scout nearby solar systems and locate new sources of potassium. 2030 - Stanley Wankel dies of potassium poisoning. His estranged son, Frank Wankel, is named successor in the will. Frank takes steps to remove some of the more eccentric corporate practices his father had instituted such as the strange obsession with potassium. However he retains the excessive use of the word “Safe” in all products and services after market analysis indicates that it helps sell products. 2031 - Omega One reports the discovery of a habitable planet. While it’s estimated potassium deposits are “insufficient”, Frank Wankel decides there could be money in the planets other more practical resources and orders his scientists to develop a way to transport people there. 2035 - Omega Robotics, a division of Omega, launches the first model “ServBot”. Designed to do most manual labor tasks. ServBots quickly replace most manual labor jobs in the developed world. 2040 - ServBot’s finally take over all minimum wage and high risk jobs throughout the developed world with the passage of several pieces of (Omega sponsored) legislation in multiple countries deeming it illegal for humans to perform high risk jobs. 2041 - Frank Wankel and his scientists manage to establish a colony on the new planet, named “Planet Omega”, as the company “owns” it. 2051 - 99% of all goods manufactured across the Earth are created directly, or indirectly, by Omega Inc.. 2058 - Senate hearings conclude that Omega Inc. should be recognized as a “sovereign entity” owning to it’s international status, the dependence of the world economy on “Omega Bucks”, and it’s total global monopoly on potassium mining and sales (potassium being a vital ingredient in the fertilizers needed to produce the high yield crops necessary to feed the vastly overpopulated planet). 2059 - Most of the outgoing US senate take positions in Omega as “consultants”. 2062 - Omega begins to manufacture “SafeBots”, lethal military robots designed to replace standing armies. 2063 - Omega dispatches SafeBot armies to stop “Economic Instability” in various parts of the globe. In the process, most developing world governments are “accidentally” replaced by Omega Corp middle management. 2070 - Reduced Oxygen Zones begin to form across much of the northern hemisphere. Unbeknownst to the populace, the global ability to transform carbon dioxide into oxygen has dramatically decreased over the previous 50 years with the extensive deforestation of the rain forests and the poisoning of the oceans due to pollution. 2071 - Omega begins to advertise the Reduced Oxygen Zones as “Free Carbon Zones” and encourages people to purchase expensive homes in these “luxury” areas. AirBots go on the market and sales skyrocket. 2076 - Construction of the “Omega Ark” begins in secret in Omega City, New Jersey (previously Hoboken). Colony development on Planet Omega increases dramatically.